


Two-Lane Blacktop

by lastSaskatchewanPirate



Series: Metaphorical Coffee [13]
Category: Transformers - All Media Types
Genre: M/M, Reference to drug trafficking
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-12-16
Updated: 2017-12-16
Packaged: 2019-02-15 09:04:43
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,294
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13027752
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lastSaskatchewanPirate/pseuds/lastSaskatchewanPirate
Summary: Soundwave needs a small favor.  Megatron pays for it.





	Two-Lane Blacktop

**Author's Note:**

> This comes directly from a chat with [weirdhawk](http://weirdhawk.tumblr.com/) about human!Soundwave getting hilariously and unprofessionally candid while recovering from general anesthesia. Sadly, I don't have a chat log, which is tragic -- weirdhawk's dialogue was MUCH funnier than this.

The phone was ringing again.

Rodimus assumed it was a phone, anyway; if there were other devices in the apartment capable of producing that kind of noise, it was a sign that things of an electronic nature had gone hideously wrong in the exciting, spark-producing, early-morning-call-to-the-fire-department kind of way, and he’d already dealt with that particular situation this month by way of Whirl and a now-defunct Keurig.

He attempted to communicate as much; however, his face being mashed into Megatron’s armpit seemed to be having a deleterious impact on his ability to do so. Whatever. He was where he wanted to be right now, thank you, especially since Megatron had showered right before bed and still smelled faintly of the silly-expensive soap that Rodimus had given him as a gift, and under that of sweat and warm healthy animal and sex; and Rodimus would be damned if he was moving.

His refusal to address the problem of the phone was apparently clear enough to Megatron, even though Rodimus’s words were not; and Megatron huffed a laugh and reached out with his other arm to snag his phone off the nightstand.

“Probably a sales call,” he growled, and then frowned at the phone before answering it. “Soundwave?”

Rodimus burrowed more deeply into his happy place, but resigned himself to listening.

Megatron was quiet for a moment, listening, and then nodded. “Yes, of course. I’ll see you there. No, it’s not a problem.” Pause. “See you.” He hung up the phone, stared at it for another long moment, and then put it back on the nightstand.

Then he stared at the ceiling for a while.

Megatron was possessed of a wide variety of significant silences, and Rodimus had known him long enough to be able to catalog and identify most of them. This was definitely a Brooding Silence, almost certainly of the I Regret All My Past Life Choices subtype, with a distinct trend toward I Destroy Everything Good That I Touch; Rodimus decided that he was absolutely not going to allow a lovely post-coital morning lie-in to be thrown any further off course than it already had been, and took action.

Megatron yelped. The action Rodimus had taken was to tug playfully at Megatron’s armpit hair, which had not actually been painful but was certainly unexpected and had the advantage of being previously untried in the Breaking Megatron Out of a Funk arena.

“The fuck?!”

“So who’s Soundwave?” said Rodimus blithely, ignoring Megatron’s glare and counting on his own cheeky insouciance to avoid getting smacked.

Megatron stared at him for a moment, and then let his head flop back on the pillow. “Soundwave is a friend.” He paused. “Old friend. From … from way back.”

Rodimus nodded thoughtfully. “Good friend, or …?”

Megatron laughed softly, wryly, and transferred his stare briefly back to the ceiling. “Best friend. He was … basically my second-in-command, if you want to think about it that way.”

“You trust him?”

“Implicitly.”

Rodimus nodded again. “Cool. So do I get to meet him?”

Megatron looked at him, measuringly, and then nodded. “If you want. He has … he needs a ride home after surgery tomorrow.”

“Something serious?”

Megatron grinned crookedly. “Wisdom teeth.”

Rodimus made a face. “Dude. Seriously?”

“Impacted, apparently, so he has to be put under for surgery; and, uh …” Megatron chuckled. “Soundwave tends to have a rather … _idiosyncratic_ reaction to general anesthesia.”

*

The oral surgeon was only a block off the major bus line, and they were able to time their arrival slightly in advance of the projected end of Soundwave’s procedure.

Rodimus paused as they walked up; parked at the curb was probably the most insanely gorgeous muscle car he had ever seen, and he was forced to stop walking in order to avoid twisting his own head off in a collision with a parking meter.

“ _Dude_.”

Megatron paused to see what had caught Rodimus’s attention, and then grinned. “Oh, he still has it. I’d hoped he would keep it, but I couldn’t be sure.”

“Huh?” said Rodimus profoundly, still staring at the car. It was a deep indigo blue, so dark that it looked almost black in the shadows and so rich that it gleamed like a jewel in the sun. There was a narrow pinstripe down the length of it from nose to tail, a perfect silver contrail, that unspooled into a looping arabesque and the name _Nemesis_. Rodimus felt his hands start to itch with the desire to see if that clearcoat was really as satin-perfect as it looked.

Then Megatron’s words penetrated. “… wait, what? He who?”

“Soundwave.” Megatron jerked his chin toward the car. “It’s his … well. It’s his now,” he amended ruefully. “It was originally mine. I signed it over to him before … uh. Before the trial.”

“Dude,” Rodimus breathed reverently. “ _Dude_. This was yours? This is … oh my _god_ , why are you holding out on me?!”

“I’m not.” Megatron snagged him by the elbow and began towing him into the oral surgeon’s office like a small reluctant dory. “It isn’t mine anymore, and Soundwave used it more than I did even when it was mine.”

“At least tell me I can get a ride sometime.” Rodimus attempted to give Megatron the pleading eyes of beseeching, but the attempt was stymied by his complete inability to remove his gaze from the car.

“We’re driving him home in it.”

Rodimus made a noise that would have seriously perturbed any roosting bat population in a two-mile radius.

*  
Soundwave tottered out to the lobby to meet them shortly after Megatron had wrestled Rodimus through the door and away from his unabashed ogling of the car.

Soundwave was tall and thin and elegant, a little stooped, and – given Megatron’s inadvertent wince – did not normally look anywhere near his current level of loopy sedation.

“Soundwave,” said Megatron gently, and the dark vague gaze turned to him before brightening visibly.

“Megatron!” Soundwave promptly threw both arms around Megatron’s neck and snuggled in close.

Megatron looked as though he had just been slapped in the face with a haddock. Rodimus gathered that this was not Soundwave’s usual _modus operandi_ , but Megatron rallied gamely and patted his lanky armful with good-humored affection before prying him off gently.

“Soundwave, this is Rodimus,” and the bleary gaze swung to Roddy. Rodimus braced himself for a long-limbed high-impact combat hug, and was disappointed; Soundwave just gave him a long slow once-over and then turned back to Megatron.

“Home now?”

“Of course.” Megatron dropped a hand onto the back of Soundwave’s neck and began steering him toward to the door. “Are the twins home?”

Soundwave made the mistake of shaking his head; luckily Megatron still had a hand on him and was able to hold him up until he had stabilized himself. “At school. Home later.”

“Fair enough. You have the keys?”

Soundwave fumbled them out of a jacket pocket and handed them to Megatron.

Rodimus almost succeeded at not squealing.

*

To be fair, the car _was_ fantastic.

It was also, according to Soundwave, who waxed positively loquacious once they were out of the office, technically not street legal. He went on at some length about the ’68 fastback Barracuda and the 426 cubic-inch Hemi under its hood, the fact that only fifty had been made, the fact that it could run a quarter mile in under twenty seconds, and the fact that he had found Megatron having sex in it eight times and having sex _on_ it twice.

Apparently the shocks had had to be replaced before their expected expiration date on a regular basis.

Soundwave paused in his recitation and blinked unevenly at Rodimus, who grinned back at him with the delight of someone who had just received a very unexpected present that was turning out to be of much higher value than anticipated.

“Who are you?”

“I’m Rodimus.” Soundwave blinked at him again, and Rodimus realized that he should probably expand on that a little. “I’m a friend of Megatron’s.”

“What kind of friend?”

Rodimus turned that question over a couple of times before venturing an answer. “Uh. A … good friend? A close friend, I guess …”

“Are you fucking him?”

Megatron choked.

Rodimus grinned brilliantly. “As often as possible.”

“Do you kiss and fuck, or just fuck?”

“Definitely with the kissing,” Rodimus said firmly, and Soundwave nodded approvingly.

“As long as you kiss him a lot,” said Soundwave, equally firmly, and began explaining in detail how to modify a ’68 Barracuda’s internal panels to facilitate smuggling heroin.

Megatron white-knuckled the steering wheel and managed to resist the temptation to break the speed limit by only the slimmest margin.

*

Soundwave’s apartment was on the third floor. After his third attempt to surmount the stairs that resulted in a wobbly, lurching collapse, Megatron simply picked him up and carried him. Rodimus followed close behind, learning in the process that Megatron used to sing ABBA songs in the shower and that his favorite thing to eat when sick was Ritz crackers and cold broccoli.

Megatron took the second and third flights of stairs two at a time.

*

Soundwave’s apartment turned out to be a tiny one-bedroom affair only barely larger than Megatron’s noteworthy domicile; equally scrupulously clean and at least marginally less horrible. The couch, at least, was a significant improvement, although Rodimus realized that that was due at least in some part to its being a sleeper; presumably the bedroom was reserved for the previously-referenced twins.

Rodimus sat down on the couch. Megatron put Soundwave down on the couch next to Rodimus.

Soundwave promptly crawled into Roddy’s lap, all knees and elbows and gangly as a newborn colt from the anesthesia, and stared into his eyes from a myopic three inches away. 

Rodimus stared back like a man with a lapful of Amur leopard.

Soundwave reached up, placed one long boney hand on each side of Rodimus’s face, and squished gently. Rodimus’s lips pursed in an involuntary moue and his eyes got even wider.

“You are a very nice young man,” Soundwave slurred earnestly. Rodimus beamed as much as a man with his face squished in someone else’s hands can beam. “I need a glass of water,” Soundwave added with equal seriousness. “Megatron, may I have a glass of water?”

“Um,” said Megatron, highly dubious of the advisability of leaving Soundwave – specifically a Soundwave whose usual reserve had been utterly obliterated while still retaining excruciatingly accurate memories of a notably checkered slice of Megatron’s past – alone with Rodimus even for a moment. “Of course.”

Soundwave turned back to his happily captive audience as Megatron tried to set a land speed record for minimum time required to get a glass of water in a tiny apartment. “I’m so glad you’re a nice man.” He squished Rodimus’s face a little more before releasing it, and then patted his cheek. “Megatron’s never dated anyone nice before. He has the worst taste in men I’ve ever seen.”

Megatron scrambled to return to the scene while not irrigating himself with the contents of the water glass. “Oh fucking hell …”

“I suppose Orion was okay,” Soundwave mused, ignoring his ex-boss’s despairing protest. “But Tarn was just the worst. Or maybe Starscream was the worst; I can’t decide.” He blinked woozily at Megatron, who was staring at him with an expression of profound horror on his face. “Which of them was worse?” He paused. “I don’t mean in bed; obviously you dated them for a reason, remember the time I found you and Tarn in the rafters of that house with the electrical tape and the feather duster?”

“Augh,” said Megatron. Horror had otherwise frozen his vocal cords, and all his motor control was currently devoted to keeping him upright without dropping a glass of water on his foot.

“I guess it doesn’t really matter,” Soundwave concluded, turning back to Rodimus. Rodimus was grinning as though all his Christmases and birthdays had just come at once, wrapped in electrical tape and topped with some very kinky decorations. “They were both awful. The problem is … the problem is that Megatron has a type, you know …” He frowned. “Or, no, the problem is that he _doesn’t_ really have a type, like a regular type. I think his type is just whoever is in the immediate area who is going to cause him the most trouble.”

Rodimus looked faintly worried for the first time since Soundwave had taken over his lap. “Do you think I’m going to cause him trouble?”

The laser-focused narrow-eyed gaze that Soundwave turned on him – as though a vital switch in his brain had suddenly been thrown – did absolutely nothing to alleviate that worry; but then Soundwave shook his head, leaning in until the tip of his nose rubbed against Rodimus’s.

“No. You might get into trouble _with_ him, but then you’ll be there to help him get _out_ of it, too.” Soundwave petted Rodimus’s hair, rolling the bright strands between his fingers thoughtfully. “You will help him, right? He always thinks he doesn’t need help, but sometimes he needs help more than anyone; he just won’t admit it.”

“Yes,” said Rodimus, and now his eyes were shining. “Absolutely.”

Soundwave nodded emphatically. “Good. He’s terrible about getting into trouble. Absolutely terrible. Has he told you about the thing with the Speedo and the bungee jumping?”

“He has _not_ ,” said Rodimus, who looked as though the top of his head was going to pop right off if his grin got any bigger.

Megatron sank onto the couch and hid his face in his hands. He didn’t whimper, because men of his stalwart crustiness do not whimper even in the gravest extremis, but it was a close thing.

Beside him, Soundwave got comfortable on Roddy’s lap. “We were in Costa Rica,” he began, “and Starscream said –“


End file.
